Love and Being With - 2024 HI Workshop in Theology and Philosophy, 17th - 18th July

 ‘When I put the table beside the chair I do not make any difference to the table or the chair, and I can take one or the other away without making any difference; but my relationship with you makes a difference to both of us…’ (Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being)

From 17th to 18th July this year, The Heythrop Institute hosted the first in a series of workshops situated at the intersection of theology and philosophy, with the aim of encouraging mutually enriching conversations between thinkers in each discipline. The first workshop in this series focused on the notion of ‘being with’.

The choice of topic was informed by two intellectual trajectories. The first of these is the attempt to re-examine Christian theology through the lens of the word ‘with’; where the love of God is understood not just in terms of benevolence (‘being for’) but the desire for union (‘being with’). An example is found in the work of Rev. Dr Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, who has written a series of books in the areas of ecclesiology, Christian ethics and doctrine, all of which focus on the centrality of ‘being with’ in Christian thought.

The second trajectory is the increased focus, in recent moral philosophy, on interpersonal relations, as exemplified by the work of Stephen Darwall (e.g. his 2013 paper ‘Being with’ and more recent analysis of love and trust as a ‘second personal attitude of the heart’). More broadly, the workshop spoke to the increased interest in developing moral philosophy in a way that is informed by the phenomenology of interpersonal life/intersubjectivity.

Speakers:

-          Rev. Dr Sam Wells (St Martin-in-the-fields; Kings College London)

-          Dr Kate Kirkpatrick (Regent Park College, Oxford)

-          Professor Jeffrey Nicholas (Providence College)

-          Dr Tony Milligan (Kings College London)

-          Dr Sarah Pawlett-Jackson (University of London)

-          Dr Philip Strammer (University of Pardubice)

-          Dr Andrea Rehberg (University of Newcastle)

-          Edward Chan Stroud (University of Oxford)